Outskirts of Lima

So we left Central Lima on Thursday and went to the South region of Lima City to Miraflores a suburb on the Pacific coast. The ridgelines are the highest I have ever seen and they have an open air, very upscale mall built into the side of it. The coast is lined with surfers. This is still spring here so the water, which is not that warm to begin with is very very cold right now. There are 7 beaches on this coast and we walked about half of them on Thursday when we first got to Miraflores. It looks like they line the coast with rocks to keep the sand and rock cliffs from eroding. There are hundreds of stairs to get down to the beach. The view from the tops of the cliffs is amazing. Thursday night we went to the centre of Miraflores where there are several cafes, restaurants, and salsa bars. We enjoyed an awesome cafe latte, and ate supper at Govinda a vegetarian restaurant. This is where Leo the Peruvian man who we met the night before works as a chef. In the centre of Miraflores there are two parks Central and Kennedy and both are filled with people, vendors, and activities. Around the outside of the parks are two story buildings with hostels, McDonalds, restaurants, cinema’s, bars etc. In the park there was a group of teenagers doing hip hop dance routines, which was really cool. Scott and I watched both the girl and boy group for at least a half hour. That night we stayed at the Friends House Hostel. We were in a dorm room, which is a room with 6 beds - bunk bed style. It was only the two of us, a girl Carissa from Arkansas and her Peruvian boyfriend. She spoke English, which was a treat for us to be able to have long conversations in English. She was completing her Masters in Archaeology at a local University and she explained to us about the history of the Moche, which were pre-Inca. In Peru the cable TV gets WB channel which is sometimes in English with Spanish subtitles and a lot of the Peruvians watch this channel so we watched the Wedding Crashers with others at the Hostel that night.

The next day we thought we should move on, to another suburb called Barracas. We grabbed a taxi, the driver was so nice, as we could not find the hostel Kaminu and he was determined to get us to the right spot. Finally we realized it was in the valley, which required us to walk off the street and down stairs to get to it. The hostel was great and Piero and his wife the owners were so upbeat and friendly. The place is very bohemian and since we were the first guests to say that we had found the place that was published in the newest revision of the Lonely Planet Peru we got a 10 Soles discount. The doors there are thin and about three meters high and there is a dog named Bingo who is so docile. We walked around Barracas, which is not very big; however very nice as it looks over the beach and is where all the Peruvians go to eat out, go to dance etc. After touring around we went to the Metro, which is a chain grocery store to get sandwich fixings to eat in the park overlooking the wooden bridge and valley right by our hostel. Later we went back to the hostel where we hooked up with a Peruvian guy named Joseph. Joseph was so friendly, in that he helped us figure out where to go tomorrow, where to stay and how much it would cost. Joseph is mentioned in the Lonely Planet guide as he can speak Japanese, German, and English. He is a friend of Piero the hostel owner. Later another friend of Piero’s came up to hang out with us Juan. Juan kept razzing Joseph saying he was a bad tour guide. They hugged it out though and both gave us their email address. Juan is going to Cusco, near Machu Picchu on Dec 16 when we will just be done our trek from Machu Picchu. He is staying with his brother there and told us to connect with him once we are done our trek. He is a surf instructor, free spirit type who loves the f-word and is proud to be a hippy :).

On Saturday we got up and took a taxi to the local bus station Soyuz, where we got tickets to Paracas. The bus is about 3 hours and very similar to taking the Grey Hound. I didn’t expect this but once you get out of Lima and start travelling south it is all dessert with huge mountain looking hills completely made out of sand. Houses are built on the side of the sand mountains. It is so neat. Something is to be said about what we have seen and are now observing on the bus heading to Paracas, everything looks like it is under construction all the time. Buildings or dwellings will be one or two stories and look like they are going to add another story on top but never finish. Construction is done a lot with bricks made into small 2.5 by 2.5 meter walls separated by re-bar where they form up while in construction and pour concrete, thus you will have walls separated by concrete pillars next to each other and then built on top of each other. There is the ever presence of crime in Peru, as all the buildings especially more upper scale ones have fences built around them, either brick walls, or iron fences that are all toped at least 8 feet high with wire, electric wire, broken glass, or sharpened re-bar welded together. Thus when you walk or drive down a street it looks barren but behind these protective curtains could be parking lots, markets, restaurants and the like you just need to find the door or buzz yourself in. Now that they have walls surrounding everything you now have infinite canvases for people to graffiti and post signs onto... it is quite interesting to see.